


Ferris

by Senket



Series: Matrimonial Complexity [2]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Birthday, Birthday Presents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-21
Updated: 2010-11-21
Packaged: 2017-11-15 13:53:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/528013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Senket/pseuds/Senket
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's John's Birthday, and all of Atlantis is ready</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ferris

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place during season four

Ferris (season four)

Rodney shocked awake, squinting up into the light, blinking rapidly for a second or two to adjust. Everything was a blurry mess of green and blue, slowly redefining itself into a big man-shaped shadow, the morning sun flashing over its shoulder, a crowd of people dressed in blue and black behind him. He focused on Zelenka's face, the man halfway between the shadow and the crowd, his eyebrows up as he smiled.

"Awake, Rodney?" he looked at the figure, squinting again.

"Colonel?"

He made out the man's customary grin, Sheppard's sun-greened eyes following beams up and up. Rodney sat up slowly, shifting to the side when his seat rocked under him. He glanced down in surprise when he noticed a cup of coffee appear in his hand suddenly, and looked up slowly again. "Oh…" And then he paused, shifting to glance behind the CO. The rest of the crowd was looking at him with amusement, or at Sheppard with curiosity, or up with a look of pride. Up? "Oh!"

He scrambled to his feet and got out, the cabin swaying back and forth slowly as it tried to find its center again after that shift in weight, and went to stand beside Zelenka, peering upwards at the great structure.

"Did you finish?" The Czech asked him, brows round above his glasses as he sipped slowly from his own lidded cup, peering towards the small control station.

"Yes, of course I finished," he answered grumblingly, the effect ruined by the clear pride in his eyes and the twinge of a smile on the edge of his lip while they watched Sheppard smooth his fingers along wooden slats.

He moved forward again, touching his friend's shoulder. "Happy birthday, John."

The man didn't answer, turning and wrapping both arms around the man's shoulders as he heaved him forward. "Best birthday," he breathed in Rodney's ear after a long beat, before releasing him and turning to the crowd with a rare and incredible smile. "Alright, you were all involved?"

They all smiled, nodding, hollering various calls at him and each other, laughing. "Alright! Everybody's getting on the damn wheel!" He waved them all forward and turned to Rodney. "How do you control this thing?"

"Uh. Well. You do, actually."

"Whadya mean?"

"Well. It's." He squinted up at the large wooden structure. "That is to say, I combined it with an Ancient control system, so you can do it with that empty head of yours."

John froze, gaping as he stared at Rodney with large eyes. A broad, heavy sound made him turn his head as the wheel slowly started to turn- John blinked and it stilled again, and his smile somehow got even brighter. He wrapped an arm around Rodney's shoulder and banged his forehead against the man's temple. "You're amazing, McKay."

"Well yes," he answered carelessly, shrugging carelessly, feeling faintly awkward with all this body contact. "Genius."

John laughed, and climbed into the first basket with Rodney, Zelenka and Lorne, turning the Ferris wheel slowly so that groups of four could get in, one after the other, and when they were all on, moved it in a slow and constant circle until he was at the top again, fixing his eyes on the distant Atlantis with a not-so-distant smile, amazed that they had managed to build this and even more amazed that they had, with so many people involved, managed to keep it a secret.

"Best day ever," Sheppard told Rodney with a conspiratory smile many hours later, after different gene-bearers had taken turns at controlling the Ferris wheel as every member of the Atlantis expedition celebrated his birthday (on shifts, of course,) on the mainland, a happy party around a large wooden wheel somehow hooked up to technology they could barely understand. Everyone had gone back but the two of them, sitting across from each other at the top of the wheel and staring out at the gleaming spires across the water.

"Well, you know. I try." He didn't miss the way Rodney smiled, either, and reached across to smack him lightly on the shoulder, taking a large bite out of a lemon tart just to spite him.

"Someone once told me that geniuses don't try, they succeed."

"Why yes, I-"

"It's a dirty lie. But I'm glad you can pull through occasionally."

"Fine. Next time, save your own damn life." Sheppard laughed when the man's nose when up in the air.

"Fine."

They smiled into the darkness, and toasted long-empty cans of beer, glancing back over to home.


End file.
